u 




POSITION 



A^'D 



DUTIES OF THE NORTH 



WITH 






REGARD TO SLAVERY. 



BY ANDREW P. PEABODY. 



j|0-pruited from the Christian Examiner of July, 1843. 



NEWBURYPOBT: CHARLES WHIPPLE. 

ABEL WHITTON, PRINTER. 

1848. 



POSITIOi\ 



A>'D 



DUTIES OF THE NORTH 



"WITH 



EEGARD TO SLAVERY. 



BY ANDREW P. PEABODY. 



Keprinted from the Christian Examiner of July, 1843. 



NEWBURYPORT : 

CHARLES WHIPPLE. 
1847. 



-/ 






ABEL "VVHITTOX. PEINTEE. 

COEJfEE OF STATZ AJTD 3CIDDLZ STEEET5, 
yZWBUETPOET. 






POSITION AND DUTIES OF THE NORTH WITH 
REGAED TO SLAVERY. 



It has been common, both at the South and the North, to deny 
not only the duty, but the right of Northern men to discuss the 
subject of slavery. The attempt has been made to draw around 
the Afiicans in bondage a line of circumvallation, which philan- 
thropy, sympathy, nay, not even calm, dispassionate investigation 
can cross with iinpunity. This line, however, we cannot hold 
sacred. For the Africans are within the pale of human brother- 
hood, which Chiistianity has marked for us ; and the fact, that 
they are part and parcel of our own body politic, certainly cannot 
render them less our brethren. Nor, on the other hand, can the 
fact, that they belong to States which wield some of the attributes 
of independent sovereignty, rightfully exclude them from our 
sympathy, unless we have been wi'ong in sympathizing with the 
Greeks and Poles, and with the Asiatic tributaries of Great Britain, 
with whose oppressors we surely have as little political connection 
as with the Southern States of oui* own Confederacy. Is it said 
that the Constitution and laws of the Union preclude our action in 
the premises, and therefore should suppress our sympathy, or at 
least the free utterance of it ? We deny that the Constitution or 
fundamental laws of the Union put this subject beyond the reach 
of ouf political action ; and, if they did, and it should still appear 
that God had placed us under religious obhgations to the enslaved, 
we cannot for a moment admit that human compacts or enactments 
are valid against the divine law. Is it peremptorily asserted, that 
we at the North have no responsiljilities or duties with reference 
to slavery ? We still will contend for the right of trying this ques^- 
tion ourselves, inasmuch as the question of responsibility or of duty 
can never be answered by others in our stead. We say not at 
the outset that it is our right or duty to act upon this subject ; but 
merely maintain the right, nay, the duty of inquiiy, — of deter- 
mining, by the free exercise of our own judgment, whether and 
how far we at the North are accountable for the wrongs and evils 
of slavery, — whether and how far Providence has entmsted to us 
the power, and given to us the means of decisive influence and 



6 

and indeed was an acknowledged leader in all ecclesiastical niair 
ters, was a Northern man, and then held an auction every Thiirs-' 
day for the sale of human flesh. These facts we ha\ e specified as'^ 
illustrating the state of principle and feelmg wliich prevails with 
hardly an exception, among Northern men, who have become cit- 
izens of the South. Now there must be something grossly wrong 
in the state of public feeling at the North, while sucli men and 
few others are sent Southward. There must be bitterness at the 
fountain, whence such streams flow. And we have no doubt that, 
if the New England people, who are now at the South, had car- 
ried with them what ought to be New England principles, and 
simply lived them out by tacitly declining all connection with 
slavery and all action in its favor, without any insurrectionary 
language or movement, they would have done a vast deal towards 
mollifying the tone of public sentiment at the South, and prepar- 
ing the way for the gradual emancipation of the enslaved. A 
healthy and active state of general sentuuent at the North is then, 
in this point of view, if in no other, of prime importance, and 
would be of extensive and controllino- influence. 

We have as yet named prominent indeed, yet only secondary- 
features of our position with reference to slavery. We are still 
more intimately connected with the system. We, the people of 
the North, are slave-holders and slave-dealers. The Constitution 
and history of our Federal (rovernment cover a vast amount of 
pro-slavery recognition, sanction, legislation, and executive action ^ 
and for all this the non-slaveholding States are accountable ; for 
they have always had the majority in the national comisels, and, 
had they been true to the principles, for which they professedly 
contended in the war of the Revolution, the Federal Government 
would have been clear of this unholy compact. Now what the 
non-slaveholding states have done, they may undo. What they 
have established they may abolish. What they have sanctioned 
they may disavow. Let us then take a cursory view of what they 
have done, established, and sanctioned ; fOr this is requisite in or- 
der to define their position. 

Our Constitution embraced at the outset a most unfortunate 
compromise, guaranteeing the continuance of the slave-trade for 
twenty years, without providing for its abolition even then ; and 
against this many earnest and fervent voices were raised by not a 
few of the first and best men in the nation; among whom we would 
make honorable mention of Joshua Atherton, of New Hampshire, 
(grandfather of Hon. Charles G. Atherton,^ who opposed the 
adoption of the Constitution on this ground alone ; for, said he, 
"If we ratify the Constitution, we become consenters to and par- 
takers in the sin and guilt of this abominable traffic." By the 



Ooiistitutlon, also, a larger than its due share of representation and 
influence was secured to the Southern States, by reckonino- tb*ee- 
fifths of the slaves in the numbers, on which the apportionment of 
representatives in Congi-ess is made, — an aiTangement, by which 
the Southern minority of the free citizens of the countiy have been 
fast approaching a majority in the representation, and will, if the 
process go on unchecked, soon attain that majority by the increase 
of slaves in the extreme South, and the creation of new slaveholdino- 
states, as in the case of Texas and Florida. There is also an a? 
tide in the Constitution, which permits the reclaiming of fuoitive 
slaves in the free States, and thus declares oiu- territoiy, what it 
has often been made, a himting ground for slave-diivers. Under 
tliis article, according to the construction of oui' Supreme Judiciary, 
any citizen of the North, (he need not be black ; men as white as 
most of our readers, have been claimed and seized as slaves at the 
North,) may be seized and carried into slavery without the form 
of trial, on the mere affidavit of the claimant before a justice of the 
peace. The redeeming trait in this article is, that it does not make 
it incumbent on the State authorities to act in such cases, and its 
force may be evaded, (as it has been, to the honor of several of 
the New England States,) by prohibiting, under severe penalties, 
any of the State functionaries from aidmg in the arrest or verifica- 
tion of persons clauned as slaves, and forbidding the use of the 
jails of the State for the detention of such persons. But still the 
article is a foul blot upon our Constitution, and a memorial of a 
sycophancy and subserviency to the South on the part of the 
North, which has been as the life-blood of Southern slavery. 

By the Constitution, Congress has exclusive jurisdiction over 
the territories belongmg to the Union ; and, south of thirty-eight 
and a half degrees of north latitude, Congress has sanctioned slave- 
ry in all those territories. Several new slaveholding States have 
been admitted to the Union; and particularly, in 1820, Missouri, 
the question of whose admission was made to turn solely on the 
point of slavery, was admitted with liberty to hold slaves, by 
means of the infamous defection of Northern members of Congress 
from the trae principles of freedom. 

Under the authority of Congress, also, and by the votes and 
the acquiescence of Northern legislators, slavery and the domestic 
slave-trade, in its most revolting features, are sustained in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, of which the entire, unrestricted jmisdiction is 
vested in Congress. There are nowhere in the Union more severe 
slave-laws than are sanctioned in that District by act of Congress. 
The barbarity of the slave-laws in force there may be judged of 
from one single item. A slave, competed of setting fire to any 
building, is to have his head cut off, his body divided into quar- 



8 

ters, and tlie parts set up in tlie most public places. In the very 
seat of government, any colored person may be apprehended as a 
fugitive slave ; and, if he proves himself free, he is charged with 
all the fees and rewards given by law for the apprehension of run- 
aways, and, upon foilure to make paj^nent, he is liable to be sold as 
a slave. Thus, under the veiy eye of Congress, a free man of color, 
on his lawful business, may be arrested, thrown into jail, and, if 
too poor to pay charges, which range from forty-five to ninety dol- 
lars, sold into irredeemable slavery. There have been, however, 
cases in which blacks thus arrested have been discharged. There 
was reported to the House of Kepresentatives a case, m which a 
black man was taken up on suspicion of being a runaway slave, 
and kept confined four hundred and Jive days, in which time 
vermin, disease, and misery had deprived him of the use of his 
limbs, and made him a cripnle for life, and he was then discharg- 
ed ])ecause no one would Iniy him. Yet, while these things are 
well known in Congress, and are brought before that body by 
committees of their own, they have repeatedly voted to make no 
alterations in the slave-laws of the District, and to such votes 
scores of Northern legislators have recorded their names in the 
affirmative. IMcanwhile the neighboring State of Maryland, from 
which many of these slave-laws were derived, yielding to the spirit 
of the age, has expunged the most obnoxious of them from her 
statute book ; and onlier soil, tlie man, who confesses himself a 
slave, is released, if his master does not answer an advertisement, 
and appear to claim him, within a limited time. _ 

Under the eye, and with the sanction of Congi-ess, the District 
of Columbia is also made the great slave-market of the Union. 
There have been single numbers of the National Intelhgencer, 
that have contained advertisements relatuig to the purchase or 
sale of not only hundreds, but even thousands of slaves. In the 
city of Washington, so lucrative is this trade, that licenses to cany 
it on, still under the authority of Congress, are given and regu- 
larly paid for at a rate prescribed by the city corporation which 
has been and probably is now no less than four hundred dol- 
lars. Northern members of Congress are often compelled to 
meet droves of slaves on their way to a market or to the river, 
handcuffed and chained together. This traffic is disgusting to the 
best people of the District, has been petitiimed agamst by large 
numbers of them, has been presented as a nuisance by gi-and 
juries, has been commented upon with righteous severity in 
Charges from the Bench, and yet legislators from the non-slave- 
holding States have not principle, energy, and independence 
enough to do it away. . 

By the Constitution, the regvilation of commerce between the 



several States is vested in Congress, and Congress has enacted 
laws peniiitting the slave-trade between the States coastwise in 
vessels of over forty tons burthen, and prescribing minutely the 
manifests, forais of entry at the custom-house, and specifications 
to be made by the masters of such vessels. By the same author- 
ity a vast inland slave-trade is carried on, and unmense numbers 
are driven in herds from the Northern to the Southern and South- 
western extremities of the slave-holding district, often thirty or 
forty attached to the same long chain, each by a short chain affix- 
ed to his iron handcuff. In Maryland and Virginia, this is a 
business of prime importance ; and large, jail-like places of depos- 
it, well supplied with thumb-screws, gags, and cowhides, are 
scattered at not infrecjuent intervals over the territory of those 
vStates. In 1836, no less than forty thousand slaves had been 
sold out of Virginia within a year, for a sum of not less than 
twenty-four millions of dollars,* and, not long before that date, 
a distuignished statesman of Virginia publicly declared, that his 
native State had been converted into "one grand menagerie, 
where men were reared for the market, like oxen for the sham- 
bles."! And all this under the authority of Congress, and with 
the consent of Northern legislators. 

But our Federal Government has not confined its action on this 
subject within its own jurisdiction. By express votes of Con- 
gress, and of course, of Northern members to constitute a majori- 
ty, the Government has repeatedly negotiated with Great Britain, 
(though happil}'- 'with no success, except a paltry pecuniary re- 
muneration in one or two instances,) for the restoration of fugitive 
slaves from Canada, and of slaves that have been cast by ship- 
wreck upon British soil. And, to cap the climax of degradation, 
our republic, when the pennanence of slavery in the island of 
Cuba was supposed to be threatened, made to the courts of Mad- 
rid and of St. Petersbui-g, and to the Congress of Panama, the 
most dolorous representations of the effect, which emancipation in 
Cuba must needs have upon her own domestic institutions, and 
intimated in the most explicit terms, that the United States would 
without hesitation embark in any war, which might be necessary 
to perpetuate slavery m that island, — yes, pledged the entii-e 
streno^th and resources of this nation, which styles itself free, to 
keep hundreds of thousands of human beings out of its own pre- 
cincts in hopeless degradation and bondage. 

Now, while such has been the spirit of a large portion of the 
delegation to Congress from the non-slaveholding States, we can- 

« Niles' Register, Oct. S, 1836. 

t Speech of Thomas Jefferson Randolph, in the Virginia Legislature, in 
1S32. 



10 



not regard tlie long rejection of petitions bearing upon slaveTy a^. 
a matter of surprise, or as furnishing additional ground for moral 
indignation to an honest and philanthropic heart. Before the 
right of petition was formally denied, the majority of Northern 
raeonbers had sufficiently shown that there was no right too sacred 
to be yielded up to Southern dictation ; and, as they would at any 
rate have treated the subject-matter of these petitions with necl 
lect and indignity, it may have been as well for them to do the 
work m brief, and to save the time and money of the nation bv 
one sweeping vote of rejection. "^ 

Such is the amount of action, permission, and sanction for 
which we at the North are accountable. To this deoTee are wc 
slave-liolders and slave-dealers. We are not indeed "directly re- 
sponsible tor slavery within the borders of the several States 
Ihat is their concern. But for every act or recognition on the 
part ot the l^ederal Government we are accountul)le.— that is w& 
the people not our representatives or rulers, who are our amits. 
but we individually, whenever we have voted for a man, who was. 
ikelyo cast a pro-slavery vote in Congress, whenever we have 
learned with mdiifeience, that our agent had cast such a vote 
whenever we have voted a second time for a man, who had once 
cast such a vote The acts of our representatives, which we let 
go by unrebid^ed, are our acts. When Northern men have thus 
voted. It has been because- their constituents were either indiffer- 
ent to the whole matter, or strongly tinged with Southern princi- 
ples. A late member of Congress,* who never failed, when the 
opportunity offered, to vote in behalf of slavery, not long am> 
made the followmg expose of his political creed : " While in pub- 
lic life. It has ever been, and will ever continue to be, my effort 
lu-st to learn, and then to do the will of my constituents '' Thi^' 
man had for several years represented a State where the general 
tone of public feeling then was either absolute indifference or a 
leamng towards the pro-slavery side of all these questions.' The 
use ot the representative's own conscience seems to have orown 
obsolete and instructions and pledges have so far supplied its 
place, that on all matters of importance, the alternative is obe- 
dience or the resignation of one's office. Thus the bui-then rest& 
upon the consciences of the citizens at large. 

Such is the position of the people of th? North, with regard to 
slavery. What are the duties growing out of this position '? 

In the first place, it is undoubtedly the duty of every citizen to 
take cognizance of the subject, to know what slavery is,, and to 
have a just, and, so far as may be, an adequate idea of its evils 
and enormities. In judging of Southern slavery, we have no need 

* Hon. Heniy Hubbard, of New Hampshire 



11 

to discuss tlie question, wliether slavery is intrinsically and under 
all circumstances an evil and a wi'ong. It is certainly within the 
range of abstract possibiHty, that a state of things might exist, in 
which something con-esponding to the relation of master and slave 
should be mutually beneficial. Such a st-ate of tilings did proba- 
l)ly exist in the patriarchal families in very early times ; and, from 
all the hints that we can glean of those times, the servants or 
slaves were generally the privileged party. But this has nothing 
to do with our negro slavery. The bondage of the African race 
is the fruit of man-stealing, a crime denounced in the severest 
terms by revelation, and utterly abhorrent to the very fii'st prin- 
ciples of humanity. Then again, our system of negi'O slavery sets 
aside that law of God, by which the marriage covenant is pro- 
nounced inviolate and permanent. There ai'e among the slaves no 
husbands and wives joined till death shall part them. Their union 
is not marriage, nor is it usually sanctioned by the sacrilegious 
mockery of a marriage ceremony. Those united for a season may 
l)e, without their consent, separated scores or hundreds of miles 
from each other, a-nd then each is permitted, expected, nay, com- 
pelled to enter into a new miion, and, perhaps a few months after, 
into yet another. The leading ecclesiastical bodies at the South 
liave even issued proclamations, declaring that the gospel laws of 
matrunony are not to be considered as binding upon the slaves, 
or "with reference to them, and that the slave may lawfully chang-e 
liis or her wife or husband with every change of residence. Thhi 
one feature is sufficient to make the whole system unspeakably 
degrading and demoralizing, inasmuch as it entirely breaks up the 
institution of families, which is the choicest instriunent of civiliza- 
tion and refinement, the sm-est bond of vii'tue, and an essential 
means of religious culture and discipline. Then too, in most of 
the Southern States, deep and hopeless degradation is entailed 
upon the slaves, by their being wholly cut off from the means of 
education; stripes, fines, and imprisonment unpending over him or 
her, who would teach a slave to read, or give him a Bible. Of 
course, this system precludes all just and accurate knowledge of 
truth and duty, and all opportunity to rise in the scale of mtellec- 
tual and moral being- Under the present state of things, the 
female slaves are necessarily, and almost universally, made vic- 
tims of the licentiousness of the whites. The most decisive and 
unanimous testimony is borne on this point by every honest wit- 
fiess- 

With regard to the moral condition of the slaves, oui- fairest esti- 
mate must of course be that founded on Southeni testimony. In a 
report adopted and published by the Presbyterian Synod of Soutli 



12 

Carolina and Georgia, made but a few years since, it is said, 
" that the negi'oes are destitute of the privileges of the gospel, 
and ever will be, under tlie present state of things," — that they 
"will bear comparison with heathen in any country in the world," 
— ^that "not a twentieth part" of the slaves attend public wor- 
ship. A writer in the Western Luminary, a respectable religious 
newspaper in Kentucky, says : 

"I proclaim it abroad to the Christian world, that heathenism 
is as real in the slave States as it is in the South Sea Islands, and 
that our negroes are as justly objects of attention to the American 
and other boards of foreign missions, as the Indians of the western 
wilds. AVliat is it constitutes heathenism ? Is it to be destitute of 
a knowledge of God, — of his holy word, — ncA^er to have heard 
scarcely a sentence of it read through life, — to know little or 
nothing of the history, character, instructions, and mission of Jesus 
Christ, — to be almost totally devoid of moral knowledge and feel- 
ing, of sentiments of probity, truth, and chastity ? If this consti- 
tutes heathenism, then are these thousands, millions of heathens in 
our beloved land. There is one topic to which I will allude, which 
will serve to establish the heatheriism of this population. I allude 
to the universal licentiousness which prevails. It may be said 
emphatically, that chastity is no virtue among them, — that its vio- 
lation neither injures female character in their own estimation, nor 
in that of their master or mistress. No instruction is ever given, no 
censui-e dispensed. I speak not of the world, I speak of Christ- 
ians generally." 

Compared with this mental and moral degradation, (we might 
almost say annihilation, for the system does all that it can to 
sink the man into the brute,) the mere physical sufferings con- 
nected with it, severe as they are, dwindle into insignificance. 
These may perhaps be often oven-ated ; the moral evils no imagi- 
nation can overrate. As to the fare, as to the clothing of the 
slaves, it is indeed scanty and poor, bearing no comparison, at 
least on the plantations, with that of free laborers at the North, 
yet much better, no doubt, than the English manufacturers and 
many classes of free laborers in Europe can procure. With re- 
o-ard to cruel treatment, there are doubtless many humane mas- 
ters, and there is a degree to which the slaves are protected by 
law, that is, they cannot be killed in mere sport or wantonness. 
But the slave-laws of all the Southern States are written in blood, 
and are a burning shame for a nation that boasts of its freedom, 
and a foul outrage upon humanity. In Virginia, there are seventy- 
one offences, which, subjecting a white man only to imprisonment, 
are in a negro punished with death. In Georgia, any person may 
inflict twenty lashes on the bare back of a slave found off tho 



13 

plantation where he belongs without a written license; and there 
are very many Southern laws, by which, not for crime, but for 
merely nominal offences, any irresponsible person whatsoever, 
without the intervention of a magistrate, may inflict from twenty 
to forty lashes. By the laws of Maryland, a slave may, for rid- 
ing a horse without leave, and for other Hke insignificant offences, 
be whipt, have his ears cropt, or be branded on the cheek 
with the letter R. But we will not go on with the loathsome and 
harrowing, recital ; we might fill many pages with it ; nor do 
we believe that there stands written, whether in fact or fiction, 
poetry or prose, anything so horrible, so shocking to every senti- 
ment of humanity, as the statute-books of the Southern States. 

In addition to the legal cruelty to which the slave is liable, he 
is left in a great degree unprotected against private violence and 
wrong. To force applied for however unlawful or brutal purposes, 
the slave can make no resistance. Passive submission, not only 
to one's own master, but to the whole white population, is enjoin- 
ed by the severest penalties. There are some cases, in which a 
slave, for merely striking a white man, may be lawfully killed on 
the spot ; and death, in Georgia for the second offence,, and for the 
third in South Carolina, is the legal penalty for a slave's striking 
any white person, under circumstances of whatever provocation, 
or in resistance of any treatment, however unlawful, brutal, or 
malicious. The slave is cut off from the benefit of trial by jury, 
except in capital cases ; and in South Cai'olina, Virginia, and 
Louisiana, life may be legally taken without the verdict of a jury. 
In Louisiana, if the court is equally divided as to the guilt of a 
slave, judgment is rendered against him. In 1832, thirty-Jive 
slaves were executed at one time in Charleston, S.C., without the 
intervention of a jury. The degree of protection which the slave 
enjoys against over-working, and the security in which he holds 
any little property of his own,, may be judged of from the fact, 
that the lowest prescribed limk- of a slave's daily labor isjifteen 
hours, that in several of the States a slave is not permitted to 
raise cotton or to keep domestic animals for his own benefit,, and 
that in several of the States masters are forbidden, under heavy 
penalties, to let their slaves work for wages for their own benefit. 
The extent to which the slave's life is protected may be inferred 
from the law of South Carolina, which provides that, if a slave be 
murdered by a white person in a sudden passion, or by excessive 
punishment, the man who kills him shall pay a moderate fine, and 
be imprisoned six months. 

Now these laws are not merely indications of what may in ex- 
treme cases be done to, or suffered by the slaves. Laws are the 
surest index of the itate of public sentiment in a community, and 
21 



14 

these laws show in what light the rights, the comfort, and the life 
of the slave are regarded at the South. These laws are the true 
criterion of judgment. Individual cases of hardship and gross 
cruelty may exist under the most humane laws, wherever man 
has power over his fellow-beings. We have ourselves known, in 
our own neighborhood, cases of the cruel treatment of children 
bound out at service, which, had they occurred at the South, 
would have figured largely in anti-slavery reports ; but they would 
here have been the subjects of the severest legal animadversion, 
and would have roused the indignation of the whole community, 
while at the South they would have been far within the liberty 
granted by law, and would have excited no surprise or censure. 
We doubt not that there are very many humane and conscientious 
masters at the South, — many, who bear the burden of slavery un- 
willingly, and who cherish a Christian sense of duty towards this 
species of property, from which they know not how to escape. 
But we want no other proof than the advertisements in Southern 
newspapers, to convince us that cases of gross inhumanity are ap- 
pallingly frequent ; and even in the cities, where the slaves are 
supposed to enjoy a condition of greater comfort than on the plan- 
tations, the severe whipping of adult slaves, both male and female, 
either by the master or by the public functionary appointed for 
that purpose, is a common and habitual thing. 

Such is slavery, — the institution for which our kind construc- 
tion, our tolerance, our sympathy, our tacit approval, is often 
claimed. Such is the slavery, which we Northern men help sus- 
tain in the District of Columbia, and in the territories under the 
national jurisdiction, and which, in the portions of the country 
where it has the deepest dye, is replenished by a traffic conducted 
under our sanction and authority. Such is the burden, which, 
as it exists in the Southern States of the Union, claims not indeed 
our interference until it is solicited, but our prayers and our sym- 
pathy both for the enslaved and for their masters. And can it be 
Heaven's will, that we should close our hearts against the knowl- 
edge of such wrong and misery ? Shall constitutions and enact- 
ments restrain prayer, and make void the law of God and of Jesus, 
which says, *' AH ye are brethren?" But what shall we, what can 
we lawfully do for the benefit of the slaves taken collectively ? 

In the first placfe, we can and should pray for the slave and his 
master, in public and in private, not in mere form, but heartily, 
fervently. And this we say, not professionally, but because we 
believe in the efficacy of prayer. The evil is one of appalling 
magnitude. The stone is very great. We cannot roll it away 
unless God strengthen us and teach us how. But if all Christian 
people at the North would unite in earnest supplication to God for 



15 

their unhappy brethren, he would open their eyes to modes of in- 
fluence and effort now hidden. And on a subject so excitino- the 
cahn and gentle spii^it of prayer is especiaUy needed to pur^rphi- 
lantln-opy from all base admixture of earthly passion, to temper it 
with justice and candor, and to prevent sympathy with the op- 
pressed from degenerating into hatred and vindictive feeWs to- 
wards the oppressor. We fear that on this subject there has been 
too much preaching compared with the praying. 

But we ought to preach as well as pray, and to write as well as 
preach. _ The subject is an open one, and demands discussion • 
nor by its discussion can wi'ong be done to any, so long as the 
laws of tmth and of brotherly love are kept inviolate, and all bit-, 
terness and wi-ath are put away. It is often said, that slavery is 
not a subject for the pulpit. But why not? A just moral per- 
spective wHl not indeed ensui^e it the broad and engTossing place 
in pulpit services, which some assign to it. But we°regard it as a 
fit subject for discussion in the stated services of the°sanctuary, 
because slavery is a moral rather than a physical evil, and pre- 
jsents its most alarming and revolting aspects in a Chiistian iDoint 
of view ; because the evil is so desperate, that no power short of 
the omnipotence of Christian truth and love can reach it ; because 
the slaves and the slave-holders are oui- bretlu-en, children of our 
Father, boimd to us by rehgious ties, and it is therefore fitting 
that we should bear them on our minds and hearts in oiu: Father's 
house ; because, if we have any duties towards them, they are re- 
ligious duties, and therefore within the legitimate scope of the pul- 
pit ; and, finally, because the subject is encompassed with so many 
difficulties, and needs for the solution of them so much of the 
wisdom that is from above, and for its discussion without offence 
so much of that eahnness and meekness, which should character- 
ize the pulpit more universally than it does, that we may well ap- 
ply to it the language and imitate the example of the "Psalmist, 
mth. regard to perplexities of a different class; *'If I say, I will 
speak thus, behold, I should offend agamst the generation of thy 
children. When I thought to know this, it was too painful for 
me, until I went into the sanctuary of God." Let then a firm 
and strong disapproval of the whole system breathe from the pul- 
pit and the press, throughout the non-slaveholding States. Let 
no man be ashamed, or afraid to utter or to write what he believes 
and feels. Let this state of public sentiment be cherished at the 
North, without any aggi-essive movement towards the South • and 
it cannot but make itself felt there. It has there even now many 
hearts ready, yearning to respond to it. And those at the South 
who chug to slavery, depend for their support to a very gi-eat de- 
gree upon popular feeling at the North, and feel fortified by the 



16 

strong pro-slavery ground taken by the Northern press and pulpit, 
more than by any or all things else. While slavery has its friends 
at the North, its hold upon the South cannot be relaxed. But 
right feeling here will work its way there. Our literature tinged 
with it will be read and felt there. Our great political orators 
once imbued with it will send the truth home to Southern hearts 
in breathing thoughts and burning words. Our ecclesiastical 
bodies are more or less intimately connected with the Southern 
church, and their unanimous, decided, and strong sentiment will 
soon find a response from every devout and intelligent Christian 
at the South, and will awaken to sincere penitence and a better 
mind those portions of the Southern church, which have entered 
into willing compact with this iniquity. Let the whole North be 
set right or this subject, and there would be no call for active in- 
terference or expostulation. Slaveiy would expue without a blow. 
It could not live a day without sympathy and support from beyond 
its own borders. Public sentiment is not the lame and slow agent 
which it once was ; but it moves on wings of fire, and is like light- 
ning which glances through the whole firmament with a flash. 

In addition to this general expression and full establishment of 
right feeling upon this subject, it is most manifestly our duty to 
undo our own work, — to abolish slavery and all operations con- 
nected with it, so far as the field of our jurisdiction extends. This 
is the most momentous subject of national legislation ; nor can we 
hope for the smile of Providence upon any of our counsels, while 
this is overlooked. We are prone to deem it of the utmost im- 
portance, (aiad it certainly is important,) that our legislators 
should be -sound in the faith on such subjects as the tariff and the 
currency, on which men yet may honestly differ, — is it not of 
incomparably greater importance that they should be men, who 
will not by their continued subserviency to a system, which no 
Northern man in his heart approves, call down the judgments of 
long-suffering Heaven upon our land ? The domestic slave-trade 
should be stopped ; and that movement would insure speedy 
emancipation in the sJave-broeding -states, where slaves are con- 
fessedly not worth keeping for their labor, and confine the evil to 
the extreme South and Southwest. The portion of the country 
under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal Government should 
be purged of this contamination. Let it be done by pui'chase, — 
it would not cost a third of what the Florida war cost, and it would 
l3e far better to pay men for what is not their property, than to 
let the most shadowy suspicion of injustice rest upon a philanthro- 
pic movement. Let the whole North too, as one man, resist the 
admission into the confederation of any new slaveholding mem- 
her. Let all the non-slaveholding States also follow the noble 



17 

o^xample already set, and forl3id the agency of tlieir magistrates 
and the use of their jails for the detention and restoration of fugi- 
tive slaves. Let the entire streno-th of the non-slaveholdins; 
States also be put foith in behalf of such amendments to the Con- 
stitution, as shall blot out all recognition of slaver}^, and appoilion 
representation to the actual number of free citizens hi the several 
States. 

But, on all these subjects, the present is the time for prompt 
and enero-etic counsel and action. Let new slaveholdino- States 
be admitted into the Union, or created from conquered territory, 
(and this may take place during the vciy next session of Con- 
gress, and scores of Northern votes be cast in favor of it,) and 
not improbably the majority of representatives at the end of an- 
other ten years will l^elong to tlie slaveholding States, and the 
•chains of slavery will then be riveted, till the iniquity of the na- 
tion is full, and our name and place shall be blotted out from 
timono- the nations of the earth. Is it said, that a decided stand 
Jigainst slavery on the part of the non-slaveholding States would 
destroy the Union? Let it then be destroyed. If the Union can- 
not be preserved, and the lavvs of God l)e at the same time kept, 
better that human compacts yield, and God be obeyed at all haz- 
^irds. In saying this, let lis not be understood as speaking trea- 
sonably of our national Union. We prize and love the Union, and 
^sincerely pray that God may keep it. But we expect safety for it 
«)nly by its conforn*.ity to tlie divine will and law. We do not be- 
lieve that it is threatened ]jy any pliilanthropic principle or move- 
inent. On the other hand, were slavery removed from a place 
so near its foundations, it would be built up at once in the streng-th 
and beauty of liberty and virtue, and would be the desire of all 
nations, Vae glory of the whole eartli. But, if the Union is tln-eat- 
ened, it is by the reciprocal encroachments of the South and syco- 
pliancy of the North, and by tlie reckless, mipiincipled tone and 
spirit thus given to the whole legislation and action of the Federal 
<rovernment. There is no part of the national administration not 
infected by the spirit of slaver}^ '* The whole head is sick, and 
the whole heart is faint." The South is arrogating to itself a vast 
preponderance of government patronage and influence, and dictat- 
ing laws for the whole Union, while Northern men, making ship- 
wreck of pruiciple on the subject of slavery, preserve it on no 
<jther subject, and are pushing the country as fast as they can into 
misrule and anarchy. The only salvation of the country is for tlie 
non-slavekolding States to assert their oyai principles, and to send 
to the national legislature men of principle, Clnistians, philanthro- 
pists, men that fear God, — not pledged and packed men, Ijut men 
whose cou^ciences their constituents can trust, — not men, who 



18 

need to be instructed, but sucb as shall go thoroughly furnished 
for every good work. 

We have as yet said nothing of anti-slavery societies. So far 
as those societies have breathed a denunciatoiy spmt, we heartily 
disapprove of it. Yet they have not been the aggressors, nor can 
there have been anything in their most bitter speeches and writ- 
ings, which can bear compaiison with the rancor of then' assail- 
ants, and the contumely and injury, which have been heaped uji- 
on them without redress. They have never mobbed defenceless 
women, nor stoniied cliurches, nor set fire to public buildings, nor 
taken the lives of their opponents. We would far sooner have stood 
in their ranks than in those of their adversaries ; for, whatever 
their excesses may have been, they have had principle on their side, 
though we wish that they had always had grace, after their great 
Master's example, when they were reviled, not to reddle again, 
Avhen they suffered, to tln^eaten not, but to commit themselves to 
liim that judgeth righteously. Had they all breathed this spirit, 
as many of them uniformly have, then* cause would by this tune 
have outgrown all opposition. Had such men as the lamented 
Follen, Channing and Ware, and some living luminaries of the 
church, whom we could name, (men who never harbored an un- 
Ivind thought, or wrote or uttered an ungentle word,) given the 
whole tone to tlie anti-slavery movement, we should by this time 
have seen the most glorious and successful reformation in modern 
Christendom far advanced towards its completion. But tliough 
the professed advocates of this cause may not have done all tliat 
they might, or so well as they might, though they have been men 
of like passions with other men, and not angels, wliich reformers 
are always expected to be, and never are, they deserve at our 
i-:ands decided vindication, as to the alleged injury to their own 
<ause, which has been charged upon them. 

It is said, that their movement has closed many hearts against 
tlie claims of the slaves. Many hearts have indeed remained 
closed ; but, in addition to the many tliousands of active and 
zealous members of anti-slavery organizations, there is a far more 
li'eneral and strong feeling on the subject througliout the entire 
North, than when this movement commenced. Nor was this a 
new movement. There had Ijeen, all over the non-slaveholding 
States, and in the more northerly of the slave-holding States, abo- 
lition societies under that express name, in active operation for 
many years from the adoption of the Federal Constitution, and in 
the Northern and Middle States till 1820. In looking over their 
reports and memorials, we find that they used as strong and earn- 
est language on the subject of slavery, as can have been used in 
i\\e most vehement recent publicati<ins. Their reprobation of the 



19 

whole S3'stera was unlimited and intensely empliatie; and they num- 
bered among theii" active members the confessedly first and best 
men in Chui'ch and State. They poured in upon Congress peti- 
tions and memorials against the admission of Missouri into the 
Union, and in these documents the strongest, most uncompromising 
anti-slavery ground was assumed, as the unanimous expression of 
Northern sentiment. That was their last great battle. Defeated 
then tlu'ough the treachery of men, on whom they implicitly de- 
pended, they left the field, and were probably disbanded ; for we 
find no subsequent traces of their existence. 

The defection of the North from its legitimate principles on that 
occasion no doubt deadened the general conscience ; and little was 
said or thought on the subject of slavery for the succeeding ten or 
twelve years. Meanwhile new relations were growing up between 
the North and the South. The Southern cotton trade during this 
interval rose from utter insignificance to a place second to no other 
branch of lousiness. The manufactories of the New England States 
l^ecame numerous and extensive, and depended on the South for 
their raw material. Our New England ships, shut out by univer- 
sal peace from the general carr^-ing trade, which they had once 
enjoj'ed, fomid the transportation of Southern cotton theu- surest 
and most lucrative employment. Thus had the North in a very 
] irief space of time become connected with the South by the clos- 
est and most constraining pecuniary ties, so that the rejHiblication 
of views, which twenty years before it had been scandalous not 
to admit, now touched new chords of interest, on which it jan*ed 
harsh and unwelcome music. The principles were not new ; but 
the relations of Northern men had become changed. 

Maryland and Virginia abolitionism owes its decline to a similar 
c-hain of causes. For many years sla-s'ery had been in those 
States an intolerable pecuniary burden. For the ordinary opera- 
tions of agTiculture, slave labor was well known to be less lucra- 
tive than free labor ; and yet the latter could not be had, while 
the fonner was employed. JMuch of the cultivated land of those 
States was exhausted by the perpetual succession of the same 
crops, and it could not be improved, nor could new land be 
brought under cultivation, without a larger capital in human 
stock, than owners could generally afford, or the profits of agricul- 
ture authorize. The Afiican slave-market was open until 1808, 
and the more Southern States could buy slaves stolen ready gi-own 
in Africa, cheaper than they could be raised" in A'irginia and 
3Iaryland ; and the suspension of the African slave trade left tlie 
country fully stocked, if not overstocked with slaves, and, South- 
ern industry remaining nearly stationary for a series of years, the 
s^lave-e;rowino' States foimd no resailar or lucrative market for their 



20 

increase. No wonder that they talked loud and long of emanci- 
pation. They were undoubtedly on the eve of decided action. 
But when cotton, from bemg little cultivated, became in a few 
years the great staple of the South, the demand for slaves grew 
iarjre and constant, the raisino; of slaves for the market became the 
most lucrative business in the country, and ^''irginia and IMaryland 
found a mine of wealth in an institution, which had long been 
draining their resources.* AMiat room then is there for surprise, 
that public feeling in these States should have undergone an en- 
tire revulsion? And is it not much more reasonable to attribute 
this revulsion to new mercenary motives operating in behalf of 
slavery, than to the re-echoing from the North of the very senti- 
ments of AVashington, Jefferson, and Randolph, — of sentiments, 
which for nearly fifty years had found free and fervent utterance 
in the legislature of Viroinia ? 

It is often said, that the anti-slaveiy movement at the North has 
l>cen the cause of many liardships and disabilities to the slaves at 
the South, particularly of the restrictions upon their movements 
and social ^-atherino-s, and of the laws ao-ainst their beinof tauo-ht 
to read. But we find on examination, that most of these effects 
preceded their alleged cause. The American Anti-Slavery So- 
ciety was formed in December, 188B ; the New England Society, 
which accomplished but little, a year or two sooner. It was not 
till 1834, or 1835, that the recent anti-slavery movement became 
of sufiicient magniitude to attract attention at the South, or to be 
generally regarded at the North as anything more than an ephem- 
eral effort of a few visionary and fanatical pliilanthropists. But 
the severest of the slave-laws are as old as the constitutions of the 
respective States ; and most of the additional restrictions and dis- 
abilities, as well those affecting the free jjlacks as the slaves, may 
be traced back to at least ten or twelve years before the forma- 
tion of the American Anti-Slavery Society. The prohibition of 
Sunday and other schools for the education of slaves, we can trace 
back in South Carolina to 18'24; and, on looking over Niles's 
Register for the five or six years next preceding and following 
that date, we find numerous enactments of the same kind in that 
and other Southern States, and very many indications of an anx- 
ious and disturbed state of feeling with reference to the negro pop- 
ulation, which we do not find within tlie last few years. f Possibly 
laws of this character may have Ijccn more rigorously executed 

*In 1829, the vsduo of Slave? exported from Virp;inia, was computed at a 
•laillion and a half of dollars; in 183G, at ticentn-fvin' millions. See Debates 
in the Virginia Convention forlS29, p. 99. Niles' Register, Oct. 8, 1S36. 

t Niles' Register, April 21, 1S21 ; ^^lardi 15, 1823; Dec, 26, 1S29 ; Jan. 16, 
1830 ; April 24, 1830, S:c. &c. 



21 

since the fonnation of tlie American Anti-Skvery Society; but 
very few such laws have been enacted since that time. The state 
of things, which Northern abolitionists have been so freely charg- 
ed with bringing about, existed in full during the interv^al when 
the North h^dly lifted a voice against slavery. With regard to 
the present condition of the slaves, we have unimpeachable testi- 
mony that they are better treated than formerly ; and this is doubt- 
less to be attributed to the influence of public opinion at the 
North, even in the partial and distorted foims in which it has 
reached the people of the South. It is said in an article m de- 
fence of slavery in the Southern Review, "The fact is notonous, 
that slaves are better treated now than fonnerly, and that their 
condition is still improving." Gen. Scott, in a letter, m which 
he expresses strong disapprobation of the anti-slavery movement, 
makes the same assertion. So much for the alleged mjury to the 
slave from his Northern friends. _ , 

It is also said, that the efforts of Northern abohtionists have 
faimed an insurrectionary spnit at the South. Against this charge 
there is abundant prima facie evidence, without our looking in- 
to the history of slave insun-ections. It is well known that living 
anti-slavery agents are not suffered to go at large in the Southern 
"States. The only effort that can be made, therefore, at the houth, 
is by sendmg anti-slavery books, pamphlets, and newspapers. 
These are indeed sent and circulated in large numbers, not among 
the slaves, (for the slaves cannot read,) but among the masters; 
and, if the slaves are made acquainted with their contents, it must 
]ie through the gratuitous agency of their masters. In point of 
fact all the oreat slave rebellions on record took place before the 
fonnation of °the American Anti-Slaverj Society. The writer ni 
the Southern Review, already refeiTcd to, says, Jhat "under no 
circumstances can a semle war ever take place ; that " in vain 
has the United i^tates mail been infested and burdened with in- 
cendiary documents-;" and that " no temptations or artifices can 
seduce the slaves from their allegiance." ™s I^Y^V%P^^- 
lished at Charleston, which was the seat m 1823 and l^^i- ot ex- 
tensive negro insm-rectiona, .discovered just on the eve ot execu- 
tion It is well known to many of our readers, that the whole 
.>K)pulation of Charleston was, for a long series of years, m a state 
■of perpetual alarm and apprehension from the slaves, and that 
South CaroUna took the lead in those legislative^ lestrictionss 
■^vhich imply a state of dread and consternation. It is truly grat- 
ifvin.^, while anti-slaveiy principles are so rapidly extendwg them- 
s^lvelat the North, to find descriptions of a state of entire and 
fearless security emanating from the highest hterary author- 
itj in that very oity and State, ha ^which, prwr to -the anti- 



22 

slavery movement, the most fearful elements of combustion were 
Ijelieved to exist. 

Is it farther said, that the anti-slavery movement at the North 
is entirely devoid of influence upon the iSouth V Not thus do South- 
ern people say. We might fill half a score of pages with unim- 
peachable Southern testimony to the effect of this movement upon 
the Southern muid and heart. Judge Upshur said, in his pros- 
pectus for the establishment of the Southern Review: " The de- 
fence of the peculiar institutions of the slave-holding States is the 
great and leading object of the work. That they are in danger, 
it would be folly to disguise. A party has arisen in the other 
States, whose object is the overthrow of the relation between mas- 
ter and slave ; and from present appearances it will continue to 
increase till the object it has in view is consummated, unless effi- 
cient measures be taken to arrest further progress." The editor 
of the South Carolina Messenger, in earnestly soliciting subscript 
tions for this same work, says : " If your institutions are ever to 
be defended, no time is to be lost. Delay, in all cases dangerous, 
would be fatal in this." The North Carolina Watchman says: 
" We are inclined to believe there is more abolitionism at the 
South, than prudence will pennit to be openly avowed." A let- 
ter from the Marj^ille Theological Seminary to the editor of the 
Emancipator says : "At least one half of the students of this the- 
ological institution are decided abolitionists, and are very much 
etrengtliened by perusmg the publications sent by you." A gen- 
tleman of Frederick County, Md., wiites : "The anti-slavery 
cause is rapidly gaining ground in this section of the country. 
Three years ago, abolitionist and insurrectionist were interchange- 
able terms, and an abolition paper a prodigy ; now anti-slavery 
papers are read regularly by our most respectable and intelligent 
citizens." Gen. Duff Green writes : " AVe believe that the South 
has nothing to fear from a servile war. We do not believe that 
the abolitionists intend to excite the slaves to insurrection. We 
believe that we have most to fear from the organized action upon 
the consciences and fears of the slave-holders themselves from the 
insinuation of tlieir dangerous heresies mto our schools, our pul- 
pits, and our domestic circles." 

We have, we trust, been successful in defending the anti-slavery 
organization from some of the grave charges, which have ])een 
made against it. But it is not by societies alone that the work 
can be accomplished. They can only sow the seed ; and this 
they have done faithfully, diligently, even if not always in good 
temper. It remains for us, citizens, Christians, to supersede 
them, (as every true friend of the cause wiU be grateful to have 
them superseded,) by adopting, all as one, the great principle?, 
which they have cherished, 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




011 899 565 A 



THE SPIRITXTAL MIRROR, 

OR, LOOKINGf-GLASS: 

Exhibiting the Human Heart as being either the Temple of God, 
or the habitation of Devils. Exemplified in a series of ten copper- 
plate Engrayings. Intended to ^id in a better understanding of 
Man^s Fallen Nature. Anciently printed in the French language, 
in which five editions were printed in 1732. Translated into the 
German language, from which it is now translated. By Peter 
Bander. 

*^By this the children of God are manifest, and the children of 
the Devil."— iJohn, 3:10. 

Sixth American Edition. Fifty cents single, four dollars per 
dozen. Newburjp^rt ; Published by 

CHARLES WHIPPLE. 



